#realms of atlantis

[desertfangs]

I'm flipping through Realms of Atlantis again for reasons and I just love that Daniel is apparently around Court somewhere but never really mentioned as being in the room, and the one time Lestat refers to him directly, he doesn't even get a name check!

"I smiled. Our coming out into the modern world had begun over forty years ago with a human radio interviewer in a rented room in San Francisco inviting Louis to tell his story to a tape recorder. And now here we were, all of us, storing every word and gesture of this historic meeting on the modern offspring of that old recorder."

I am legitimately losing my mind.

✨ HUMAN RADIO INTERVIEWER ✨

He has a name. Lestat knows his name! Lestat stayed at his house in Florida and spoke to him about his time with Armand, if nothing else. He's Armand's only fledgling, for god's sake. I mean come on!

I hope Daniel gets that put on a t-shirt and gives them out to the Coven as Christmas gifts. Or on a set of throw pillows he leaves on Lestat's throne. Maybe he can comandeer Benji's studio and start his own vampire podcast call "Human Radio Interviewer at Vampire Court."

I'm going to go chew paper.

[bubblegum-blackwood]

This is so funny. Fareed is like whatever Greg I think you're full of shit

[somevagrantchild]

Missing Loustat scene discovered in Anne Rice's diaries

I HAVE SOMETHING AMAZING TO SHARE WITH YOU!!

As I was reading Anne Rice's diaries in the special collection library at Tulane University while I was in New Orleans for the Vampire Ball, I discovered this intensely sexy scene she wrote between Louis and Lestat that never made it into her books. This is Anne Rice's original writing, never before shared anywhere online.

Anne Rice wrote this scene by hand in her diary dated November 6, 2015 (which she mentions is the day before Stan's birthday. He would have been 73😭). I have deduced that it is her very first (and very rough) draft of the scene that eventually became chapter 4 in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, aka the scene where Louis agrees to move into the chateau and be Lestat's partner/companion again. The final version of the scene in the book reads like wedding vows, serving as the beginning of their marriage in the modern era. As you'll see, the first draft was rather different. 

In Prince Lestat, Louis and Lestat's interactions are extremely brief, and they aren't able to talk beyond one stolen moment to reassure each other of their love. It would seem that in the six months between the end of Prince Lestat (when Louis thinks to himself that he will be with Lestat very soon), and the beginning of Atlantis (when that finally ends up happening), Louis and Lestat do not have any intimate conversation. They may have talked somewhat, but only briefly about superficial matters, or they may have not even spoken to each other once over those six months until Lestat asks Louis to meet him in New Orleans for chapter 4.

In an earlier diary entry, I found a note where Anne said she wanted their first reunion conversation to begin by finally addressing Louis dumping Lestat's body in the swamp after Claudia tried to kill him—something they have never once discussed. So when I came across this scene in a later diary, I could tell it was a direct follow-through on that idea. 

The scene begins with Lestat speaking to Louis, and it seems they are outside on the streets of New Orleans, but someplace private where they aren't being observed by mortals. This is different from the final book version with them sitting at a sticky table at the Café Du Monde (though it is similar to how Lestat tells us they walked around the city streets together for hours after the reunion scene was over). 

Anne headed this part of the diary entry with: Early on: L+L quarrel—

“I can forgive her for what she did. She was never a human being. She went from being an infant to a monster. But you—you stood there and watched. You carried my body into the swamps and dumped me there as if I were trash—you were the one I hated! How could you do that to me? Decades we’d been together!”

He stared at me for the longest time—not defensive, not angry.

“I could do it because I was afraid,” he said. “I didn’t know how I was going to live without you.”

“I don’t believe you. You were fine without me. You were preparing to sail to Europe. You were making plans.”

A torrent of words.

“Stop!” he said. “I’m here now. I love you! I thought you wanted me here! I thought you’d forgiven me. I thought we had a second chance, now, you and I. And miles to travel together!”

I nodded.

“A second chance!”

I nodded.

Then I took hold of him as if I was going to kill him. I threw him up against the wall and bit into his neck for the first time in two hundred years—the first time since the first time—and when the blood gushed into my mouth, I saw again—for the first time in two hundred years—his soul, his heart.

I was lost in his mind, his thoughts, his dreams, flashes…

I drew back—I’d drunk too much. He was being held there by me, his head bowed. I slapped him hard and when he opened his eyes, I pushed his open mouth against my neck. I forced his fangs into me.

And we were together, wrapped in one another’s arms…

Finally I pushed him back.

He was sitting on the paving stones, hair in his face, back to the wall. I took his hand and helped him up.

“Kiss me,” I said. “No, really kiss me.”

Finally I let him go.

“I can’t live without you! “ he said. “I swear, you wander off on me again, I…”

“I won’t. I won’t ever.”

We walked along in silence.

“He loves you too,” he said.

“Who?”

“The silent one, the one who’s never spoken to me, the one inside you.”

It was time. I could have lingered a half hour more in the old times, but the time was now.

The End 

------------------------------------

Above is the clean version, which I have corrected for missing punctuation, missing letters/words, and necessary dialogue tags.

Below is the original rough version as I have transcribed exactly from Anne Rice's handwritten diary.

------------------------------------

“I can forgive her for what she did. She was never a human being. She went from being an infant to a monster. But you—you stood there & watched. You carried my body in the swamps & dumped me there as if I were trash—you were the one I hated! How could you do that to me? Decades we’d been together!

He stared at me for the longest time—not defensive, not angry.

I could do it because I was afraid, he said. “I didn’t know how I was going to live without you.”

“I don’t believe. You were fine without me. You were preparing to sail to Europe. You were making plans.”

—A torrent of words.

“Stop! I’m here now. I love you! I thought you ’d wanted me here! I thought you’d forgive me. I thought we had a second chance, now, you & I. And miles to travel together!”

I nodded—

“A second chance!”

I nodded—

Then I took hold of him as if I was going to kill him. I threw him up against the wall & bit into his neck for the first time in 200 years—the first time since the first time—and when the blood gushed into my mouth I saw again—for the first time in 200 years—his soul, his heart—

I was lost in his mind, his thoughts, his dreams, flashes — (more)

I drew back—I’d drunk too much He was being held there by me, his head bowed. I slapped him hard & when he opened his eyes I pushed his open mouth against my neck. I forced his fangs into me.

And we were together, wrapped in one another arms — (more)

Finally I pushed him back.

He was sitting on the paving stones, hair in his face, back to the wall. I took his hand & helped him up.

Kiss me. No really kiss me.

Finally I let him go.

I can’t live without you! I swear, you wander off on me again, I … I ”

“I won’t. I won’t ever.”

We walked along in silence —

He loves you too

Who

The silent one, the one who’s never spoken to me, the one inside you.

It was time. I could have linger a half hour more in the old times, but was now —

The End 

------------------------------------

The spots where she wrote (more) are clearly areas where she intended to expound upon all Lestat was seeing and feeling in Louis's mind, soul, and blood, and then what he felt and saw as Louis was drinking from him. How I wish we could know what she would have written there! Also the lines that start or end with a — make me wonder if she intended to add more to those bits as well. Would she have actually written out Lestat's torrent of words?

Lestat's line "Kiss me. No really kiss me." isn't in quotation marks in Anne's diary. I chose to add them, because there were many other obviously spoken-aloud dialogue lines also without quotes. But it is possible that Lestat only thinks these words as he and Louis are kissing each other. It reminds me of in Queen of the Damned, when Daniel thinks, "I like kissing. And suggling with dead things, yes, hold me." The narration doesn't tell us Armand actually starts holding him, but Anne's style of using internal monologue makes it clear that's what happens in the action. So the "Kiss me." could be similar in this instance as well. And in that case it might mean Louis is the one who initiates the kiss, and this is Lestat’s internal “yes, yes!!” reaction to it. But I do suspect he is actually meant to be saying it aloud.

With the em dash at the end of it, the very last line could have been meant to continue: "but was now ______" was now...something. But considering she wrote "The End" after it, it seems like it was meant to be a final statement, so that is why I added the missing words I chose in my edited clean version.

Although this conversation is very different from the one we get in the final version of Atlantis, I do still see elements of it in the book's scene:

Louis's line "I can’t live without you! I swear, you wander off on me again, I …" became "so I'll come. And when you tire of me and want me gone, I'll hate you of course."

They still kiss, really kiss. In the book, it is moved to before their conversation, when Lestat first sees Louis in their Rue Royal flat, wearing the new clothes he ordered for him and Louis says, "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" and Lestat is so shocked, he's unable to respond.

They do still discuss Amel in the book version, in much more depth than he is mentioned here. Louis having never heard Amel's voice in his own head remains consistent. 

They do still go walking around the streets of the Garden District, though it happens after the conversation, not during it. Lestat does say they talked for hours during that walk, but about Amel and what's been happening to Lestat as Prince. Not about themselves or their past. 

MY THOUGHTS!

The confirmation here that Lestat never tasted Louis's blood before their new marriage begins in Atlantis is one of the most amazing parts to me, when combined with the offhand way that Lestat mentions what Louis's vampire blood tastes like in Blood Communion. Even though the final version of Atlantis never shows us Lestat drinking Louis's blood (either forcefully like this scene, or consensually in other ways), the mention in Blood Communion does confirm that it DOES happen off the page at some point during the years between Atlantis chapter 4 and the beginning of Blood Communion. 

We know that Louis drank much of Lestat's blood at the end of Merrick, and this was his first time doing it because we were told in previous books how much he resisted his powers being increased by drinking ANY other vampire's blood. It is nice to have it confirmed that Lestat never bit Louis or drank any of his blood in return either before or after Merrick. But now, after Lestat becomes Prince, this is now a new element to their relationship. It makes me consider more strongly that Anne perhaps meant to imply that they then for the first time began to engage in blood sharing the same romantic way Lestat did with Akasha in Queen of the Damned, and then in the even more explicit way she shows us with Rhoshamandes and Benedict in Prince Lestat. 

I don't take all Anne wrote in her diaries as canon. It is clear that much of what she wrote there were spitball ideas that she later chose to absolutely reject (as opposed to deciding they were true but she just didn't mention them in the books). But I do not see anything in this scene that the final versions of the books contradict. So even though this scene didn't actually happen in canon, we can believe that the feelings and emotions that drive this scene are still canon. And I love that for us 🥰

I have cross-posted this on ao3 to give us a good place to talk back and forth to each other about it in the comments section there. Reblog and reply to this post as much as you like, but if you want to have some conversations and share your own thoughts on what she wrote, ao3 will give us a much more organized place to do it, where other people will be able to easily find and read your meta as well.

[cuntyvampires]

Lestat and Armand, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

[calipsan]

There’s something just so amazing about a council of vampires sitting around a table arguing whether or not Atlantis is real.

[imaginal-ai]

"An Atlantean Ambassador"

(The Antediluvian Series)

[nalyra-dreaming]

I can't stop thinking about that Assad interview when he said that Armand hates how much he loves everything about Lestat. Why do you think he does that? Because Lestat rejected him and he's embarassed that he still can't get over him or is there sth more to it? And do you think that Louis feels similar way? It feels like he doesn't really want to accept loving him and feels guilty about it and I get why he acts this way but it kinda makes me sad that the both treat loving Lestat as a burden.

I don't think it's "embarrassment" per se, I think it's more the frustration of knowing he fucked it up himself.

Because he and Lestat were thiiiissssssss close to getting it on... and then Armand tried to force Lestat. And that was it.

And no, I do not think Louis feels the same way... at all.

Louis' problem with loving Lestat is self-acceptance. And the fear that Lestat might actually tire of him(!). He literally says that, later in the books, when he goes to Lestat:

When I looked into these green eyes, I saw only Louis, and the words echoing in my mind were Louis’s words. “I know what you need,” he said. “You need one person who is always on your side. Well, I’m ready to be that one now. I don’t know why I tormented you, made you pay for asking, made you come all this way. I always knew I was going to come. Maybe I thought you’d lose interest because I never really understood why you wanted me in the first place. But you’re not losing interest, not even with the whole Court, and so I’ll come. And when you tire of me and want me gone, I’ll hate you, of course.” “Trust me,” I whispered. He was cutting me to the heart and making me happy, and this was pain. “I do,” he said.

So no, not guilty.

Afraid that Lestat will tire of him!!

But that... was never the problem :)

[jullythevamp]

this line does not leave my head. what do you mean marius lost daniel to armand AGAIN. did this two fight for daniel or

[nightcolorz]

Armand’s big fight with Marius in RoA where Marius calls Armand a “savage, ignorant child” and leaves Armand and everyone else shook happens shortly before it’s mentioned that Daniel decided to leave Marius and go back to Armand. Now, the events aren’t explicitly mentioned to be related to each other and you’re free to interpret it in any way you want as a reader, but I’ve always sort of thought that it was after that nasty fight that Daniel was like “yeaaaah… no” and finally made up his mind to go back to Armand. Like, there were some lines that were not supposed to be crossed and Marius crossed them during that fight, and he was not going to just sit back and watch, and considering it happened shortly after Daniel and Armand reunited… makes you think 🤔

ooooo omgggg YESS!!! Fun fact the savage ignorant child argument is probably my favorite throw away one line that should have been an entire scene but didn’t Anne write it for some reason, like I think about that fight all the time. My headcanon is that the reason we don’t get any details about what went down is bcus Armand shouted at lestat about how he better mf not include that or no hole for a billon years 😭. But YES!! I definitely get the impression that that fight was a turning point of Armand, Marius, and Daniel, and ur connection between them getting together shortly after and Marius being explicitly said about that makes like perfect sense, I definitely am adopting that interpretation

[notagaindammit]

Lestat on Sluttiness

from Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis:

"Traitor," said Amel. "Slut."

I tried to conceal my smile. I just love being called a slut. I don't know why. I just do. "Have at it, beloved numbskull," I mumbled without moving my lips.

[cbrownjc]

Hello!

Re the latest interview with Eric and Assad, to the question "What does Daniel make of someone like Raglan James and the Talamasca? After Louis and Armand, does anything surprise him?" Eric answered with "... I fell in love with the guy as soon as he sat down next to me in the sushi bar. He was pretty cool"

I'm not mother tongued in English, so I wanted to ask: Is Eric talking about Daniel or himself (loving to work with the actor)?

Because if he's talking about Daniel either they're going to change their relationship (probably more manipulation from Raglan) or maybe hint something else?

Like if Raglan is really Marius, would they hint at that? I know that Daniel went with Marius for some time because he went mad, but did they have a romantic relationship in the books?

Thank you for clarifying have a nice day

Hi!

So yeah, Eric is very much talking about Daniel's thought process here. And it's because of that I'm leaning more toward Justin Kirk's character not being Raglan James and actually being Marius. And any hints the show is doing that the whole Body Theif plot will happen with Daniel is just a red herring.

Because honestly, from what I've observed many book readers, including me, immediately thought Daniel would get David's Body Thief plot when it was shown that Daniel has been aged up so much. However, more and more I've begun to think that if Daniel does ever get switched into another body, it won't be done via Raglan James or that whole storyline, but in a different way (and for a different reason) completely.

Now, as to if Daniel and Marius become a couple, yes, they do. Now granted, I'm only on Chapter 15 of the Prince Lestat book right now but from what I've read of them together in that book they are very much a couple. Marius flat-out calls Daniel his companion in it.

And I also know that by the time they've split up and Daniel and Armand are back together, Marius has this moment of reflection in the book Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis where he laments having lost Daniel to Armand:

I don't know if there is any mention of Marius and Daniel's relationship in the final book, Blood Communion. So far, from what I've observed, there isn't. So I think by that point what companionship there had been between them was over by then.

So yeah, from what it looks like and what I know, Daniel and Marius do become companions -- maybe while Daniel is still healing from going mad (though them being one didn't feel like it to me when I read Blood and Gold), but they are for sure one after Daniel has recovered.

And so I think the show is very much setting up for that, if what Eric is saying about Daniel's reaction to Raglan James is what I think it is, which is actually a hint that Kirk is actually playing Marius, and Daniel's relationship with Marius. Frankly, I could already see the parallels that are being set up vis a vis Marius' relationship with Armand and Armand's relationship with Daniel. So the show already setting up for Daniel's time with Marius and what transpired during that wouldn't be a surprise to me either.

[cuntyvampires]

Louis and Lestat, Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

[rapha-reads]

Me: I want to talk about Louis de Pointe du Lac in the books and how he's constantly haunting the narrative whenever Lestat is the narrator, even when he's not physically present or Lestat isn't even consciously thinking of him, because Lestat is actually always thinking of him and remembering him and using him as his humanity compass, and...

The tiny rational part of me: can you PLEASE go to bed, you'll write a love letter to Louis once you've had more than 4 hours of sleep, I am begging you, your eyes are burning, your neck is aching, you're starting to get a headache and you're being slightly delirious.

Me: but Louis.

Rational me: LATER.

Anyway I love Louis and I love how Lestat completely adores Louis and I love how every single vampire of the Court, from the most ancients to the youngests, know that they belong together and no one should ever try to separate them.

Also Louis noping out of the entire drama with Amel and those clone guys to go peacefully read in his crypt far away from the entire drama is so FUNNY AND RELATABLE, like same mate, saaaame, I'm good reading about it, don't wanna live it, no thanks.

[kaelio]

Lestat and Armand 🥰

PL:ROA

[somevagrantchild]

Making myself teary this morning thinking about how the last thing Lestat thinks about before he might die is how Louis looked on the night he made him 😭❤️

Louis closed the lid of my coffin and seated himself there. He was close enough to me that I could take his hand and I did.

A memory came back to me, a memory of the first time I ever saw him in New Orleans. He’d been staggering through the streets drunk, a rough-cut version of what he was now. Suddenly the veil collapsed between that time and this and it was all playing back for me as if someone else had a hand on the button and I saw him after the transformation standing in the swamp, the water almost up to his knees as he marveled at everything around him, including the moon snagged in the moss-hung branches of the cypress trees, and I could smell the fetid green water again.

I let out a long sigh.

[nalyra-dreaming]

I know many people think Lestat woke up when louis geart stopped beating but that wasn’t confirmed right? Cuz how would he know that?

Okay, so...

This is one of those things that is "in-between the lines", where many things between Louis and Lestat are. Lestat tells the reader that they must read between the lines in TVL, so that is something to be kept in mind as intentional.

There are a few things that must be considered here, imho:

In "Blackwood Farm" Lestat tells Quinn that the "angels" took his soul with them:

"They left my body there for my friends to watch over," he explained, and for the first time since I'd seen him, he looked troubled, indecisive, even faintly confused. "But my spirit they took with them," he went on. "And in a realm as palpable as this very room they set me down to do their bidding, always threatening to snatch back this right eye, to take it forever if I didn't do what they bid me to do." [...] "I don't even know which of my bodies was the true one — the body that lay on the floor of the chapel of St. Elizabeth's, or the body that roamed with the so-called angels. I was an unwilling trafficker in knowledge and illusions."

Now... Lestat is at the mercy of these "angels" in spiritual realms for years. Years.

He wakes once from a more dreamlike state (as the unpublished book details) to help Armand and the others hunt down the riff raff in New Orleans.

But that is not the same state he is afterwards, because there he was commenting on what was going on around him... and later in Merrick, David notes that Lestat's soul does not seem to actually be there.

"Once again, I had the distinct impression that his soul was not in his body, not in the way that we believed it to be."

This later state is what Lestat is telling us of in "Blackwood Farm."

Now, David sits down and warns Lestat that Louis will attempt suicide.

Louis sits down to say goodbye to Lestat.

Lestat does not wake from neither plea nor goodbye.

So what does wake him?

It could not have been an outward change, because he was alone at St. Elizabeth's when Louis put himself into his coven in the courtyard of Rue Royale.

It could not have been David, who was also at Rue Royale, nor could it have been Merrick.

The show has picked up on what Louis said about their heartbeats, and elevated it, and I do think it is important.

"[...]the drum was my heart, and the second drum had been his."

Louis notes in the book that even after the turning he hears Lestat's heart:

"His heart I still heard like the beating of a drum."

(For vampires, their hearts also sync up with the heartbeats of their victims when they feed, but then that victim's heart stops, of course.)

In "Prince Lestat" Lestat makes note that he also recognizes vampires by heartbeat, or at least certain ones.

Now, in "Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis", we get to Louis' account of the Merrick event, which is an important aspect of it all. Because he narrows it down:

"But the etheric body, the Amel body, was still in you,” said Fareed. “It had to be or you couldn’t have been revived.” “That’s true,” Louis said. “It was there inside me and it would have remained there until the ashes were scattered. It would have remained suspended, waiting, waiting for how long we don’t know. Remember the old admonition from Magnus, Lestat? Scatter the ashes? Well, no one scattered my ashes and I was brought back—by your blood, and David’s blood, and Merrick’s blood too." [...] “My heart had stopped,” said Louis. “There was no blood pumping in me. All circulation had stopped when my heart stopped. That is how I was dead.”

I was speechless. Then slowly it dawned on me. It came back to me what Kapetria had said...something about the invisible tentacles—or the cord—being the only part of us that was not filled with blood.

And here it all comes together, imho.

The cord. The heartbeat. The heart that stopped.

"We are joined by a cord, a cord you cannot see, but it is real."

Louis and Lestat "share a heart", they hear each other's heartbeat. They are also joined by a cord, not just then when the events in PLotRoA are reached, but also because Louis is Lestat's fledgling, and Amel's "tendrils" reached/were given from Lestat in/to Louis.

When Louis' heart stopped that tendril of the spirit Amel snapped.

Lestat, in the spiritual realm at the time, must have been able to feel it.

When Louis' heartbeat stopped the cord snapped.

And Lestat immediately woke up.

(Since they already introduced the cord... I'm quite sure that will be the same in the show if and when they go there.)